CMOS Image Sensors in Robotic Surgery Systems

The future of medical surgery is robotic! The “robot” in Robotic Surgery Systems is a group of remote manipulators that allow a surgeon to effectively“work inside” a human body to complete complex surgeries in a minimally invasive procedure. To control these manipulators, the surgeon is in the operating room working in a control console, viewing the surgical site via a 3D image coming from two tiny cameras on a manipulator inside the body. The surgeon guides the manipulator via computer controls, with the computer performing a number of “safety checks” on the movements of the manipulators.

Applications of Robotic Surgery:

General Surgery

Cardiothoracic Surgery

Cardiology and Electrophysiology

Colon and Rectal Surgery

Gastrointestinal Surgery

Gynecology

Neurosurgery

Orthopedics

Pediatrics

Radiosurgery

Urology

Vascular Surgery

Forza Silicon has been the image sensor of choice for surgical systems used globally. This application requires extremely miniature camera designs, all done in monolithic CMOS. Forza uses the design and process rules of several partner silicon fabrication centers, allowing our customer systems to take advantage of the very latest fabrication processes. Our surgical camera image sensors use 0.35 µm processes with full on-board processing to reduce the interface complexity between the chip and the “outside world.” HDTV resolutions are typical.